Kickin’ it with KING Art Games – The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Today we are bringing you a feature on The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 for all you point and click fans.

4cr: Welcome! Can you please introduce yourself to our audience?

Hi there! I’m Marco Rosenberg from KING Art Games, a small game developer in Bremen, Germany. We are a small team of about 30 people and develop point-and-click adventures, strategy games, and browser games.

4cr: We received a tip from one of our readers about your Kickstarter campaign for The Book of Unwritten Tales 2. What can you tell us about this project?

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 (BoUT2) is a humorous point-and-click adventure that pays homage to the fantasy worlds that we all love, like Lord of the Rings, World of Warcraft, Harry Potter, Dungeons & Dragons, Discworld and many more.
It’s a sequel to the critically acclaimed The Book of Unwritten Tales, which is one of the most successful adventure games of the last decade. The main characters of the game are the gnome mage Wilbur, the elf princess Ivo, the pirate Nate and his pink furry companion, the Critter. In the fantasy world of Aventásia they visit exciting locations and meet lots of quirky characters.

4cr: You’ve previously ran a successful Kickstarter for Battle World: Kronos, a turn-based strategy game that secured over $260,000 in pledges. How much did knowing the way Kickstarter works help you when creating the campaign for The Book of Unwritten Tales 2?

It helped a lot. For a start, we didn’t have to repeat some of the preparation work and research, as we already had opened a branch office in the US and knew the process of transactions, taxes and other legal stuff. We also knew about the importance of having a really good pitch video and were able to start early on preparing videos and information for updates. What is hard to predict is the public reaction, but like in our previous campaign the feedback of and interaction with the fans of The Book of Unwritten Tales is a wonderful experience.

4cr: Are there a special extra reward in place for backers who pledged for both projects?

No there isn’t, but we have lots of cool rewards like your name or face in the game, plushies and hand puppets of our furry protagonist Critter, and of course a boxed Kickstarter-exclusive Special Edition of the game.

4cr: Are you considering bringing The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 (and perhaps the first one as well) to any of the current set of home consoles (Wii U, PS4, XBO)?

Currently we’re concentrating on PC, Mac & Linux. Depending on how big the demand for BoUT2 is on different platforms there could be more versions later.

4cr: How many people will be working at King ART Games to have the game ready by its tentative January 2015 release date?

We didn’t count yet. For BoUT1 there were more than 60 people involved in making the game, including external workers. This time it’s probably be similar. If you include the members of the 70 person orchestra that we’ll be recording part of the soundtrack with and the voice actors for about 60 speaking roles in two languages, the number is even much higher.

4cr: What languages will be supported for The Book of Unwritten Tales 2? Dubs or subs?

The Kickstarter version of BoUT2 will contain full German and English voices and subtitles, so we’ll concentrate on that first. Subtitles for other languages might be added later, during or after production, but that depends on finding publishing partners for the respective countries and on the demand for each language.

4cr: How did you decide to set the digital copy of the game at a $25 tier? Also, what are the differences between the regular and the Special Edition available at higher tiers?

We thoroughly calculated and planned the costs for each reward tier. One has to consider the fees for Kickstarter and Amazon Payment that are due after the project, production costs of the rewards, logistics, credit card payments not going through, and many more factors like that.
The Limited Kickstarter Edition contains the game in a really nice box, including a printed extended manual, a high-quality printed making-of book, the soundtrack on CD, and a BoUT2 mouse pad. Backers at this tier can also download the digital version of the game and receive Digital Special Editions of BoUT1 and The Critter Chronicles. And their name will be in the credits of the game.

4cr: Are your previous games available as part of the rewards for this campaign?

Yes, there are several reward tiers that contain some or all of our other games. That way people can cover the waiting time for BoUT2 by playing our adventure games BoUT1, The Critter Chronicles and The Raven or our previous Kickstarter-funded turn-based strategy game Battle Worlds: Kronos.

4cr: Thank you for your time. Would you like to say anything else before we go?

We want to thank all the people who have supported us so far. It is wonderful to get such positive feedback and help by the community. That’s the best thing about Kickstarter: We can feel the love and passion that people have for our games. That gives us lots of energy to make this the best game possible.

Thanks for the nice background information. Some where already known some are new or clarifies things. I hope the second Book of Unwritten Tales comes with the same nice humor and story like the first one.